Commonwealth Games: Two Nigerian para-powerlifters disqualified for ‘arriving late’, to relinquish medals to another country

Latifat Tijani and Oyinyechi Mark have been disqualified from the para-powerlifting event at the 2022 Commonwealth Games for arriving late.

The Nigerians were billed to participate in the women’s lightweight category at 3:00 pm but they were disqualified from the event.

According to TheCable, the organisers did not allow them to compete due to what they described as “the para-athletes’ lateness for their kit inspection ahead of the competition.”

Consequently, for the first time since para-powerlifting debuted at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester in 2002, Nigeria will be relinquishing the gold medal in the sport to another country.

Nigeria has won all 12 Commonwealth Games gold medals in the sport.

Tijani won gold at the Tokyo Paralympics games while Mark took silver in the women’s 61kg category.

The evening session at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham will see Innocent Amadi and Thomas Kure represent the country in the men’s lightweight event.

The quartet of Bose Omolayo, Folashade Oluwafemiayo, Ikechukwu Obichukwu, Abdulazeez Ibrahim will also participate in the men’s and women’s heavyweight finals.